real Life, but by comparing him with other Authours. It was obferved of the ancient Schools of Declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the Student difqualified for the World, because he found nothing there which he should ever meet with in any other Place. The fame Remark may be applied to every Stage but that of Shakespeare. The Theatre, when it is under any other Direction, is peopled by fuch Characters as were never seen, converfing in a Language which was never heard, upon Topicks which will never arife in the Commerce of Mankind. But the Dialogue of this Authour is often fo evidently determined by the Incident which produces it, and is pursued with fo much Eafe and Simplicity, that it feems fcarcely to claim the Merit of Fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent Selection out of common Converfation, and common Occurrences.

Upon every other Stage the univerfal Agent is Love, by whofe Power all Good and Evil is diftributed, and every Action quickened or retarded. To bring a Lover, a Lady and a Rival into the Fable; to entangle them in contradictory Obligations, perplex them with Oppofitions of Intereft, and harrafs them with Violence of Defires inconfiftent with each other; to make them meet in Rapture, and part in Agony; to fill their Mouths with hyperbolical Joy, and outrageous Sorrow; to diftrefs them as nothing human ever was diftreffed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered, is the Business of a modern Dramatift. For this Probability is violated, Life is misrepresented, and Language is depraved. But Love is only one of many Paffions, and as it has no great Influence upon the Sum of Life, it has little Operation in the Dramas of a Poet, who caught his Ideas from the living World, and exhibited only what he faw before him. He knew

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knew that any other Paffion, as it was regular or excrbitant, was a Cause of Happiness or Calamity.

Characters thus ample and general were not eafily difcriminated and preferved, yet perhaps no Poet ever kept his Perfonages more diftinct from each other. I will not fay with Pope, that every Speech may be affigned to the proper Speaker, because many Speeches there are which have nothing characteriftical; but, perhaps, though fome may be equally adapted to every Perfon, it will be difficult to find any that can be properly transferred from the prefent Poffeffor to another Claimant. The Choice is right, when there is Reason for Choice.

Other Dramatifts can only gain Attention by hyperbolical or aggravated Characters, by fabulous and unexampled Excellence or Depravity, as the Writers of barbarous Romances invigorated the Reader by a Giant and a Dwarf; and he that should form his Expectations of human Affairs from the Play, or from the Tale, would be equally deceived. ShakeSpeare has no Heroes; his Scenes are occupied only by Men, who act and speak as the Reader thinks that he fhould himself have spoken or acted on the fame Occafion: Even where the Agency is fupernatural, the Dialogue is level with Life. Other Writers disguise the most natural Paffions and moft frequent Incidents; fo that he who contemplates them in the Book will not know them in the World: Shakespeare approximates the Remote, and familiarizes the Wonderful; the Event which he reprefents will not happen, but if it were poffible, its Effect would be probably fuch as he has affigned; and it may be faid, that he has not only fhewn human Nature as it acts in real Exigencies, but as it will be found in Trials, to which it cannot be exposed.

This therefore is the Praise of Shakespeare, that his Drama is the Mirrour of Life; that he who has

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mazed his Imagination, in following the Phantoms which other Writers raife up before them, may here be cured of his delirious Extafies, by reading human Sentiments in human Language; by Scenes from which a Hermit may eftimate the Tranfactions of the World, and a Confeffor predict the Progress of the Paffions.

His Adherence to general Nature has expofed him to the Cenfure of Criticks, who form their Judgments upon narrower Principles. Dennis and Rhymer think his Romans not fufficiently Roman; and Voltaire cenfures his Kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a Senator of Rome, fhould play the Buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks Decency violated, when the Danish Ufurper is reprefented as a Drunkard. But Shakespeare always makes Nature predominate over Accident; and if he preferves the effential Character, is not very careful of Diftinctions fuperinduced and adventitious. His Story requires Romans or Kings, but he thinks only on Men. He knew that Rome, like every other City, had Men of all Difpofitions; and wanting a Buffoon, he went into the Senate-house for that which the Se ́nate-houfe would certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to fhew an Uiurper and a Murderer not only odious, but defpicable; he therefore added. Drunkenness to his other Qualities, knowing that Kings love Wine like other Men, and that Wine exerts its natural Power upon Kings. Thefe are the petty Cavils of petty Minds; a Poet overlooks the casual Distinction of Country and Condition, as a Painter, fatisfied with the Figure, neglects the Drapery.

The Cenfure which he has incurred by mixing comick and tragick Scenes, as it extends to all his Works, deferves more Confideration, Let the Fact be first stated, and then examined.

Shakespeare's Plays are not in the rigorous or critical Senfe either Tragedies or Comedies, but Compofitions of a diftinct Kind; exhibiting the real State of fublunary Nature, which partakes of Good and Evil, Joy and Sorrow, mingled with endless Variety of Proportion and innumerable Modes of Combination and expreffing the Courfe of the World, in which the Lofs of one is the Gain of another; in which, at the fame Time, the Reveller is hafting to his Wine, and the Mourner burying his Friend; in which the Malignity of one is fometimes defeated by the Frolick of another; and many Mischiefs and many Benefits are done and hindered without Defign.

Out of this Chaos of mingled Purposes and Cafualties the ancient Poets, according to the Laws which Custom had prescribed, felected fome the Crimes of Men, and fome their Abfurdities; fome the momentous Viciffitudes of Life, and some the lighter Occurrences; fome the Terrours of Diftrefs, and fome the Gayeties of Profperity. Thus rofe the two Modes of Imitation known by the Names of Tragedy and Comedy, Compofitions intended to promote different Ends by contrary Means, and confidered as fo little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a fingle Writer who attempted both.

Shakespeare has united the Powers of exciting Laughter and Sorrow, not only in one Mind, but in one Compofition. Almost all his Plays are divided between serious and ludricous Characters; and, in the fucceffive Evolutions of the Defign, fometimes produce Seriousness and Sorrow, and fometimes Levity and Laughter.

That this is a Practice contrary to the Rules of Criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an Appeal open from Criticism to Nature. The End of Writing is to inftruct; the End of Poetry is to inftruct by pleafing. That the mingled Drama

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may convey all the Inftruction of Tragedy or Comedy cannot be denied; because it includes both in its Alterations of Exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the Appearance of Life, by fhewing how great Machinations and flender Designs may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general Syftem by unavoidable Concatenation.

It is objected, that by this Change of Scenes the Paffions are interrupted in their Progreffion; and that the principal Event, being not advanced by a due Gradation of preparatory Incidents, wants at laft the Power to move, which conftitutes the Perfection of dramatick Poetry. This Reafoning is fo fpecious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily Experience feel it to be falfe. The Interchanges of mingled Scenes feldom fail to produce the intended Viciffitudes of Paffion. Fiction cannot move fo much, but that the Attention may be easily tranfferred; and though it must be allowed that pleafing Melancholy be fometimes interrupted by unwelcome Levity; yet let it be confidered likewife, that Melancholy is often not pleafing, and that the Disturbance of one Man may be the Relief of another; that different Auditors have different Habitudes; and that, upon the Whole, all Pleasure confifts in Variety.

The Players, who in their Edition divided our Authour's Works into Comedies, Hiftories, and Tragedies, feem not to have diftinguifhed the three Kinds by any very exact or definitive Ideas.

An Action which ended happily to the principal Perfons, however ferious or diftrefsful through its intermediate Incidents, in their Opinion conftituted a Comedy. This Idea of a Comedy continued long amongst us, and Plays were written, which, by changing the Cataftrophe, were Tragedies to-day, and Comedies to-morrow. Tragedy

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